Let’s See How Much Louisville and the NCAA Cares About Kevin Ware

Louisville coach Rick Pitino said the bone was punched six inches beyond the skin. The reference was to Kevin Ware. The game was not football as you might expect, but basketball in the first half of Louisville’s game against Duke in their battle to go to the Final Four.  His leg is reportedly broken in two places. Pitino shed tears. His teammates on the floor were crying. Yet Ware said “win the game”.   They did. They were already more athletic but from that point forward they were also more driven.  The Cardinals had 10 steals, 35-26 rebounding edge and had out-willed Duke by mid-second half. They won 85-63.  

We expose these mostly-teenagers for months when they fail or have weaknesses. Little will be said after next week about how character rises. Perhaps ESPN commentator Seth Greenberg said it best. While Ware was fighting his unprecedented pain he “was team-absorbed, not self-absorbed.”

For now the attention is on a young man that has at least a year of painful recovery and armed only with hope to a return to the sport he loves and the career he hopes to pursue. Let’s see whether the university and the NCAA are as passionate for Ware as the Pitino tears seem to indicate. Beyond the character Ware will himself have to show to come back, this is an opportunity for Louisville to show the best of medical care and support and insurance for required and additional needs. I assume that if necessary, Louisville will also pay the $75,000 or $90,000 deductible to access the NCAA’s Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program. That same fund even provides training for those who help him during rehabilitation.  Let’s see if Ware even retains his scholarship, which is not guaranteed by NCAA rules. And let’s see how much of the NCAA’s $1 billion in advertising revenue from March Madness will trickle down to Kevin, or super- freshman Nerlens Noel, who tore his ACL after hitting the support mechanism for the basket. Noel is already dismissed from the media spotlight.  After the NCAA championships, so will Ware.

But some are monitoring how schools treat players who face adversity, and will be reporting results so future players and parents can make informed decisions as to which schools have the talented teen’s best interests at heart.